THE CAVE ON THE THORWALD
and I was sworn to silence. But since you found out”
“Did you think me curious—” she asked naïvely, “because I read the cigarette papers?”
“Curious!” he laughed. “Well rather! The mistake I made was in tellin’ you not to read them. If I”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she whispered. “I can’t stand that. The only retribution for what I did this afternoon is a blow. If you struck me, Cyril, I should not care.”
“But I won’t, you know, old girl. But I’m going to kiss you again if you don’t mind.”
And he did, while a shadow darkened her eyes. “It seems terrible to be happy, even in our moment of security, with the shadow of death hanging so closely over us. I know you had to kill him, Cyril, but” She paused.
“It was either that or he would have killed me. As it was, it was too jolly close a thing for comfort. I gave the other man his chance, but he wouldn’t take it. Lucky he didn’t, for I might have missed the papers.”
She clung to him more closely.
“And if you had been killed?” she whispered. “I saw it all. At first I thought you had fallen. O Cyril, the agony of it! And then you came out from behind the tree and I knew that you were unharmed. I had seen a man die, as I had, there upon the rocks at Ben-a-Chielt, but when the other one came at you I wanted you to kill him. I wanted it. I prayed that you would. It was murder—in my heart. I can’t understand how I have changed. And I’ve always thought death such a fearsome thing!”
She hid her face in his shoulder and clung to him,
263
